eDIGIREGION 2nd International Conference Bucharest

Return on Innovation
through
Interregional Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

SPEAKERS BROCHURE

18-19 May 2016

Bucharest
French Institute of Romania (Elvira Popescu)

KEY SPEAKERS AND PANELISTS

Adrian Curaj | Marius Mitroi | Franois Saint Paul | Bill O'Gorman | Viorel Peca\ Pauli Kuosmanen |
Sabina Baciu | Lucia Seel | Barnabas Malnay | Daniel Cosnita | Hctor Casanueva | Bogdan Iordache |
Kevin Doolin | Jonathan Becedas | Manuel Costescu | Dan Lupu | Malin Stefanescu | Brian Foley |
Amaia San Cristobal | Marcin Wolski | Csaba Arendas | Vladimir Oane

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Adrian Curaj
Minister of Education and Scientific Research - Romania

Innovation Drivers in an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Adrian Curaj is Minister of Education and Research since November 2015.
Previously, Mr. Curaj was the General Director of the Executive Agency for
Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation. He was acting as the Romanian
Prime Ministers Advisor on Science, Technology, ICT and e-Governance (2007-2008), and
as the President of the National Authority for Scientific Research - State Secretary for
Research, Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sport in Romania (2009-2010). Adrian
Curaj has been working as a consultant with World Bank, UNESCO, UNIDO and EC for studies
in Tertiary Education, Science and Innovation, and Foresight. He was a Romanian
representative at the Bologna Follow-up Group. He is a member of the Romanian
Commission for UNESCO and a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Fulbright
Commission in Romania. He is a member of EFFLA-European Forum for Forward Looking
Activities since 2012 and he was also a member of the External Advisory Board PEOPLE,
General Directorate for Research and European Commission, 2007-2012. Adrian Curaj was
acting as project leader for many projects including Foresight in Science and Innovation
(2005-2006), Foresight in Higher Education (2009-2011), and research infrastructures
Research Infrastructures: Foresight and Impact -RIFI - EC- FP7 project (2009-2011). He is
a member of the advisory board of the ETF FRAME: Skills for the Future project since 2012.
Adrian Curaj published in reputed scientific journals as well as many books, most of them in
research and higher education management, and foresight. Two of the inventions he is coauthor received gold medals at the Geneva Invention Salon 2009 and 2013. Adrian Curaj was
twice awarded with Romanian National Distinctions, For Merits-Cavalier in 1999, and For
Merits-Officer in 2008 for his contributions to Science and Innovation.

Marius Mitroi
eDIGIREGION regional coordinator

Opening remarks
Being in charge with the coordination of the Innovation Programme at
UEFISCDI (Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development
and Innovation Funding), Marius has designed, developed and implemented the Funding
programme for research and innovation, identifying European best practices and instruments
for the Programmes addressed to SMEs. He was involved in developing new support policies
for innovation and financing instruments (e.g. Innovation Vouchers, developing new
products-systems-technologies,

developing

innovation

and

technological

transfer

infrastructure, support services for innovation, European cooperation programmes as

EUREKA-EUROSTARS). Also, he coordinates projects in areas as entrepreneurship, protecting
IPR and clusters, funded by programmes like South-East Europe, EEA Grants, INTERREG IVC,
FP7 and H2020 (e.g. SEE-IFA Network, ECOEMERGE, FINNO, KT Force, VIBE, CLOUD, SEE
Technology, EVLIA, eDIGIREGION, INNOVOUCHER).

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Franois Saint Paul

Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of France in Romania

On Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Romania

H.E. Mr. Franois Saint-Paul is serving as Frances Ambassador to Romania
since 2014. Prior to that Ambassador Saint-Paul was the director of the
French abroad and of the consular administration department inside the French Foreign and
European Affairs Ministry and, from 2004 to 2009, he served as France Ambassador to
Croatia. Ambassador Saint Paul has an extensive background in diplomacy since early 1980s.
He is born in 1958; he holds a law degree and graduated from the Institute of Political
Studies.

Bill O'Gorman
Director for Research CEDRE, eDIGIREGION leader

eDIGIREGION Overview
Professor Bill OGorman is Director for Research in the Centre Enterprise
Development and Regional Economy (CEDRE). As well as performing his own research and
supervising others in the fields of entrepreneurial regions, regional development and
entrepreneurship research he also lecturers in entrepreneurship, organisation development
(OD), and change management at undergraduate, post graduate and executive levels. Bill is a
mentor to a number of new and developing indigenous organisations. Prior to joining
academia in 1999, Bill was Managing Director of his own electronics sub-contract business
for nine years. Prior to that, he amassed over twenty years experience working in various
multinational organisations at senior management and executive levels. From around the
mid 1990s Bill has developed strong links with regional and national policy makers and
implementers. He is an advisor on several government programmes and participates in
forums examining the development of policy for SMEs, entrepreneurial regions, and
entrepreneurship education. Since 2004, Bill has been Lead Partner and Coordinator of many
EU co-funded including the EU Regions of Knowledge project CRIPREDE. One of the
sustainable legacies from the CRIPREDE project was the creation and development of the
Spirit of Enterprise Forum in South East Ireland, a forum involving all of the regions key
stakeholders in entrepreneurship and innovation. Currently Bill is Leader of the EU funded
eDIGIREGION project which focuses on developing the RTD and Innovation Aspects of the EU
Digital Agenda within regions across the EU.

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Viorel Peca
Head of Unit F2 - Innovation DG CONNECT, European Commission

Open Disruptive Innovation & Fast Track to Innovation

Toward a Digital Single Market (panel)
Viorel Peca is Head of the Innovation Unit with the European Commission.
His unit's mission is to develop and inspire a new vision on ICT innovation. This addresses,
in particular, innovation support actions and project, standards (including the ICT multistakeholder platform), IPR strategies, prizes, pre-commercial procurement and procurement
of innovative solutions, SME instruments and access to finance.He joined the European
Commission in 2008 and DG Connect in 2011 as Head of Unit for Networked Media.
Previously, he was Chief Business Analyst and Project Manager, DG DIGIT, Project Manager
for IPTV and Triple Play projects, Test Project Leader for 7301 ASAM: reponsible with test
strategy, test follow-up, Feature Development Leader for 7301 ASAM, System Integration
Test Engineer.

Pauli Kuosmanen
C.E.O. DIGILE, eDIGIREGION Advisory Board Member

Toward a Digital Single Market (panel) & Smart Investments Debates (panel)
Is Open Innovation possible in large consortia including your competitors?
Pauli Kuosmanen received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Licentiate degrees in mathematics
from the University of Tampere, Finland, in 1989, 1991, and 1993, respectively. He received
the doctor of technology degree in signal processing from the Tampere University of
Technology in 1994. He received the eMBA degree in 2006. Since 1990 he has held various
research and teaching positions at the University of Tampere and the Tampere University of
Technology, most notably he was a professor of signal processing for 8 years. He was
working as a Director of New Technologies at the Research Center of Elisa Communications
Corp during 2001-2004. He was the CTO of telecommunications at Plenware, 2005-2008.
After serving as the CTO of DIGILE (a strategic centre for science, technology and innovation
in the field of digital economy) during 2008-2015, he currently serves as the CEO of DIGILE.
Prof. Kuosmanen has authored over 150 international journal and conference articles, seven
international book chapters, and he is a co-author in the book "Fundamentals of Nonlinear
Digital Filtering". He has supervised dozens of M.Sc. and 11 Dr.Tech. students and has been
leading tens of research projects with total volume over 500M.

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Sabina Baciu
Chief Knowledge Officer, Oricum.ro

Cross-sectorial Cooperation Track: Where do Creative Industries meet smart

specialisation - eDIGIREGION Regional Case Study
With a background in communication and new media, Sabina has been
working in the past 7 years in various creative projects as a communicator and project
manager in Romania and Belgium, from jazz festivals to trainings in entrepreneurship in
creative industries, conferences dedicated to the creative sector or educational projects.
Sabina is the currently the executive director of ORICUM Association, a Creative and Cultural
Industries support agency that delivers projects to influence policymaking, education and
economic development in the field of creativity. They are aiming, as their central mission, to
contribute significantly to the transformation of Romania as the regional centre of creative
industries by 2030. In the last year she has been working as an independent expert for
developing the Cultural Strategy of Bucharest 2016-2026.

Lucia Seel
International Expert on innovation, clusters and creative industries,
eDIGIREGION Advisory Board Member

Innovation-driven Clusters Track: Exchange of Interregional good

practices and transnational cooperation (panel)
How the European Cluster Collaboration Platform supports crosssectorial cooperation in Europe and beyond
Lucia Seel has more than 11 years of experience in international innovation and cluster
policies

and

cluster

development/management,

having

coordinated

the

European

programmes at Clusterland Upper Austria Ltd. for 6 years. Lucia played an active role in
several flagship European projects like the European Cluster Excellence Initiative, The
European Cluster Observatory, TACTICS, CLOE and many others in various programmes. In
2011 Lucia started her own consultancy company, focusing on development and/or
management of European projects, support for international cooperation in the field of
innovation and clustering, cultural and creative industries, training and international
networking. She was between 2012-2013 member of the high-level expert group European
Forum for Clusters in Emerging Industries set up by the European Commission, DG
Enterprise & Industry. She gives a particular attention to creative industries clusters and
cross-innovation, being involved in several European initiatives and projects (ClusteriX,
CROSS INNOVATION, CREA.RE creative regions, VINCI among others). She is from 20152017 the Global Communication and Content Manager for the European Cluster
Collaboration Platform (www.clustercollaboration.eu), an initiative of DG GROW.

Lucia is

well-known speaker and moderator at international conferences and workshops, with a large
record of presentations and moderations. In April 2012 she set up the Cluster Women
European Network (ClusterWene), an entrepreneurial initiative to strengthen womens
position in the cluster community. Lucia is an evaluator of the EC in the COSME programme
She is certified ESCA Cluster Benchmarking Expert and Gold Label Assessor and currently

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

member of the Design for Europe Expert Group and Creative

Business Cup Ambassador. Lucia is Austrian, but Romanian born and speaks 6 languages. As
an active international person Lucia was founder and the first president of AIESEC in Romania
and is now member of several large networks like TCI - The Competitiveness Institute Global
Network, EWMD European Women Management Development Network, Marketing Club Linz
and Clustero (Romanian National Cluster Association). Lucia graduated magna cum laude
from the Academy of Economic Sciences in Bucharest/Romania. She worked both for
multinational companies such as Saatchi & Saatchi Centrade in Bucharest and Silhouette
International in Linz/Austria (as area manager for South-East Asia and South Europe
handling a sales budget of more than 30 Mio. Euro), as well as for small companies in
Austria and public administration bodies in Austria and Romania.

Barnabas Malnay
Mobilitas & Multimedia Cluster

Innovation-driven Clusters Track: Exchange of interregional good

practices and transnational cooperation (panel)
Regional Innovation Champions (panel)
Barnabas Malnay is managing director at the Hungarian Mobility and Multimedia Cluster,
partner at the early-stage startup advisory firm WS Cofounder, and business development
advisor at EIT ICT Labs Budapest. Earlier, he was business development director at AVEC, a
startup accelerator launched by one of Hungarys largest VC groups; director of external
relations and development at Kitchen Budapest, Magyar Telekoms innovation lab; and senior
advisor at Magyar Telekoms Innovation and Business Development Directorate. He studied
social and political theory at ELTE and CEU in Budapest, and at Stanford University, where he
also worked as a teaching assistant and instructor in various teaching programs.

Daniel Cosnita
President of the Romanian Cluster Association (Clustero)

Innovation-driven Clusters Track: Exchange of Interregional good practices and

transnational cooperation (panel)
Graduated both as an engineer and economist, Daniel Cosnita has been working in the last
10 years in the fields of technology transfer and innovation and of regional economic
development. Ha has been involved in setting up several pilot projects like the IT Business
Incubator of the Technical University in Timisoara (UBIT), the clusters Pro Wood (wood and
furniture), Cluster2Success (IT, cross border RO-HU) etc. Since 2008 he has been supporting
the Romanian Ministry for Economy in the generation of the national cluster policy, by
performing the cluster mapping exercise at national level, contributing to the elaboration of
the Guide of Applicants of the financing schemes dedicated to the poles of competitiveness
etc. Currently he is a member of the team of experts supporting the Ministry of Education
and Research in the elaboration of the Smart Specialisation Strategy of Romania. He acted as
a consultant for the Algerian government in setting up a national network of business
incubators and for the Turkish government in the elaboration of the national cluster

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

strategy. He has generated and managed numerous national and

international projects - especially FP6, FP7, and has run several project generation seminars
in Romania and abroad based on the concept of individual and institutional learning.

Hctor Casanueva
Permanent Representative of Chile to World Trade Organization

Entrepreneurial ecosystems: from regional to a global perspective

Hctor Casanueva is Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Chile in Geneve,
Switzerland, to the World Trade Organization (WTO), to the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Developement (UNCTAD), to the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) and to the International Trade Center (ITC). He is graduate as Master in
European Communnities by the Polithecnic University of Madrid, living in Spain for twelve
years. He is Professor of the Diplomatic Academy of Chile, and graduate teacher and lecturer
on international issues at universities in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Panama, Peru, Spain and
Rumania. In the public sector of Chile, he served as Ambassador to The Latin American
Association for Economic Integration (ALADI) and MERCOSUR (Montevideo, Uruguay), being
responsible for the negotiation of resolutions for the establishment of the Free Trade Space
between the member countries of the Treaty of Montevideo. He also chaired the Working
Group of New Technologies and Electronic Commerce, and the Working Group for the
relatively less developed countries. He was a member of the advisor cabinet of the Minister
of Finance (1995-1997); Director of Export Promotion Bereau-ProChile (1997-1999); and
General Coordinator of International Affairs of the Ministry of Agriculture (2009-2010). Mr.
Casanueva was co-founder and was in 1995 the first president of the board of the
`Latinobarmetro`, a poll system similar to urobarometro`. He was co-founder and Vice
President of the Chilean Council of Foresight and Strategy, and the author of several books
and articles in the domain of his expertise. Writes regularly for newspapers and academic
reviews of Latinamerica and Europe. Decorations: Government of Panama: Order Vasco
Nunez de Balboa in the rank of Grand Cross; Government of France: Ordre National du
Merite, grade of Commandeur; Government of Germany: Das Grosse Verdienstkreuz mit
Stern. World Council of Education: Order of Educational Merit. Municipality of the City of

Chilln, Chile: Decoration Bernardo OHiggins. University of the Pacific, Distinguished

Personality 2004 Award.

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Bogdan Iordache
co-founder How to Web, Romania

Regional Innovation Champions (panel)

Smart Investments Debates (panel)
Bogdan is the founder and board manager of How to Web and
TechHub Bucharest, Program Director of MVP Academy and Principal Advisor of MVP Angels.
Tech entrepreneur at heart, Bogdan has been deeply involved with the development of the
tech community in Bucharest and in the region, contributing to the development of other
tech initiatives as Tech Angels and Innovation Labs. Bogdan has founded Conectoo, an email
marketing service, sold to Conversion Marketing, and has worked as an investor with 3TS
Capital Partners. Also, he has been a mentor for accelerator programs such as Seedcamp,
Springboard, TechStars, Hub:raum, LauncHUB, Eleven or HackFWD.

Kevin Doolin
COO, Telecommunications and Software Systems Group (TSSG),Ireland

Regional Innovation Champions (panel)

Kevin Doolin is the Chief Operations Officer (COO) and Director of
European Union at Telecommunications Software and Systems Group
(TSSG www.tssg.org). In his role as COO, Kevin is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of
the seven individual research units at TSSG, which he coordinates alongside the Unit
Managers. He is also responsible for the strategic approach and development of each unit,
including but not limited to the key cross-unit decisions, assisting in commercial, research
and proposal development of each unit.
As Director of EU Programmes Kevin plays a key role in driving the Units and individuals to
get involved in EU applied research and driving proposal strategies for all relevant EU calls.
Kevins area of expertise is Pervasive Computing, which is the forerunner to Internet of
Things (IoT). Kevin has been involved in this space since he joined TSSG in 2004. Kevin has
already coordinated a number of key EU projects in this space, for example PERSIST
(www.ict-persist.eu) which deals with establishing personal smart spaces and integrating
these with other smart spaces such as the smart office, smart home, etc. His most recent
project was the 15M EU flagship project SOCIETIES (www.ict-societies.eu), which closed in
April 2014 and received significant praise from expert scientific reviewers. Kevin describes
the project, SOCIETIES focuses on bridging the gap between pervasive and social
computing, and enables the establishment of dynamically formed networks of people and
things which can in turn be offered personalised mobile services. SOCIETIES is detailed in
two key magazines produced during the project: http://www.ict-societies.eu/magazinedownloads/. Kevin is the founder of a new TSSG startup called fuseami (www.fuseami.com)
(the official App for this event). Fuseami provides a service whereby attendees at events and
conferences can discover each other based on their degree of relevance. The service is
currently rolling out across multiple events internationally.

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Jonathan Becedas
R&D Deimos Sattelite Systems, Spain

Regional Innovation Champions (panel)

Dr. Jonathan Becedas is Electrical Engineer and Industrial Engineer graduated
with honours. He holds a Master in Research and a PhD in Mechatronics by
the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Spain. He is author of over 50 full refereed
papers in Information and Communications Technologies and has led and participated in
more than 20 competitive research and development projects. He held a position of
Researcher and Associate Professor at UCLM (2002-2009), and Research Associate at the
University of Leicester, UK (2009-2011). He was head of the Robotics Department at Ixion
Industry and Aerospace (2011-2013). He is R&D Manager and Principal Investigator at
Elecnor Deimos where he leads and coordinates the research and innovation of the company.

Manuel Costescu
State Secretary, InvestRomania

Smart Investments Debates (panel)

Manuel Costescu is the State Secretary of InvestRomania, coordinating the
organization that acts as the first point of access for foreign investors when
initiating a project. His role involves connecting investors with the most relevant Romanian
authorities according to their needs, facilitating the negotiations between investors and the
Romanian government and developing a new foreign investment and export strategy for
Romania. Before his current position, Manuel was a corporate banker within J.P. Morgans
Corporate & Investment Bank, covering public sector institutions. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan,
he was a consultant for his own London-based company, focusing on leadership consulting,
team alignment, and facilitation. Before that, he was an engagement manager at McKinsey
and Company, advising clients in banking, asset management, media, and logistics. He has
an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT and an MPA ID from the Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University.

Dan Lupu
EarlyBird Venture Capital

Smart Investments Debates (panel)

Dan is currently a Partner at Early Bird Capital, after having spent 4 years as
an Investment Director at Intel Capital, where he was in charge of South-East
Europe. Before that, he gained a lot of valuable experience at SigmaBleyzer (a private equity
fund focused on South-East Europe) as an Investment Executive. His gained his knowledge
as an equity research analyst in fields such as telecom, pharmaceuticals and white goods.

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Malin Stefanescu
MVP Angels

Smart Investments Debates (panel)

Founded EEU Software in 2000, a company that develops Java projects and
handles large implementations, virtualization and automated testing projects.
Invested in Green Horse Games and led a group for investing in SmartDreamers as a
business angel. Active member of Tech Angels, investor in MVP Angels.

Brian Foley
eDIGIREGION EU Quality Manager

Agriculture 4.0: An Opportunity for the Regions (panel)

Brian Foley is the EU Quality Manager at the TSSG Research Group in
Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland. TSSG is one of Ireland's leading ICT research
groups with over 150 active researchers and has a well-earned reputation for excellence at
European and international levels. He is responsible for quality-managing EU proposals and
supporting researchers in proposal development. He has previously managed and
coordinated projects in EU RTD Frameworks 5, 6 and 7. Brian has twenty-five years
experience working with public and private sector organisations in Ireland and Europe. He
has a first class honours degree and has worked in a variety of roles since graduating in
1987. An experienced Project Manager, he has successfully managed in-company,
collaborative and international research projects. He has also worked in the agri-industry in
a range of policy and commercial roles. He represented the Irish agricultural co-operatives
to the EU in Brussels in the early nineties, helping to formulate Irish industry reaction to
European policies. He represented Ireland in a number of European working groups and was
an active contributor on a range of agri-related topics. He has also worked as Commercial
Manager in an export-oriented, high growth, innovation-led agri. company and has
consulted to Ireland's leading dairy-processing companies. This experience of working in
ICT research, agricultural policy and agri-business gives Brian a unique perspective on the
potential for advanced ICT to transform European agricultural production.

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Amaia San Cristobal

Desertic, Spain

Agriculture 4.0: An Opportunity for the Regions (panel)

Ms. Amaia San Cristobal: Degree in Political Science and Master in European
Policies, specialised in the management and execution of national and European projects
dealing with lifelong learning, regional development and ICT. Since 1997 has been working
in the implementation of projects for different public and private bodies in the areas of
Environment, Transport, ICT, I+D, Innovation and regional sustainable planning. Among
others, she has worked with different institutions in these areas as Transport and energy
Directorate General; Environment Directorate General, Regional Directorate General,
European Parliament STOA unit and for national bodies as IDAE and Economic Ministry,
Social Affairs Ministry and Environment Ministry and for other regional and local institutions.
She has also experience in the evaluation of projects and initiatives promoted by local,
regional, national and European entities.

Marcin Wolski
Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center Poland

Agriculture 4.0: An Opportunity for the Regions (panel)

Marcin Wolski received the M.Sc. degree in Computing Science from Poznan
University of Technology in 2001. Since 2009, he has been leading the
Advanced Data Management Systems Team. Marcins professional interests include database
systems, professional software development and enterprise application integration. His
research involvement also covers the area of grids and semantic SOA. He has participated in
several projects funded by Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. He is also the
author or co-author of several papers in conference proceedings. Currently Marcin is
contributing his application development experience to the networking field. Also he
coordinates the upgrade on existing IT systems supporting central educational institutions in
Poland.

Csaba Arendas
Founder and CEO of QuantisLabs Ltd. Hungary

Agriculture 4.0: An Opportunity for the Regions (panel)

Highly interested in innovation and research management. As an engineer his
preferred area is IT security: designing of security related products, IT security audits. CEO,
QuantisLabs Ltd; Innovation and technology transfer associate, Etvs Lornd University,
Technology Transfer Office; M.Sc. in Communication Systems, EPFL; security engineer,
SEARCH Lab; teaching assistant, Dennis Gabor College for Information Technology,
Budapest. Projects: QRNG - Quantum Random Number Generator, QuantumID - Quantum

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Authentication and Identification, SmartVineyard - Wireless Sensor

Networks for Professional Viticulture

Vladimir Oane
Product Manager at HootSuite

Return on Innovation - eDigiregion Regional Case Study

Vladimir is in charge of all aspects of the product at uberVU. His design
background and obsession about details has transformed uberVU into the easiest-to-use
product on the market. For 3 years before being the CPO, Vladimir was also the CEO of
uberVU. He is a serial entrepreneur who likes to get involved with early-stage startups, as
proven by his advisory role in many international startups and by his numerous startup
conference speaking engagements.

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

SUPPORT FRAMEWORK SPECIALISTS

Csaba Arendas | Bela Urbanyi | Peter Barta | Klara Stumpf | Ciaran Cullen |
Michael Martin | Lina Klemkaite | Bill O'Gorman | Marius Mitroi | Vicente
Munoz

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Csaba Arendas
Founder and CEO of QuantisLabs Ltd. Hungary
Csaba rends (ing. sys. com. dipl. EPF) is founder and CEO of QuantisLabs
Ltd. Highly interested in IT and communication networks and security.
Fascinated by technology based innovation management. Building widelyrecognized enterprise out of the SmartVineyard project, which minimizes chemical
consumption in viticulture. Gained qualification at Stanford University, University of
Cambridge, EPFL Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Budapest University of
Technology and Economics

Bela Urbanyi
Head of Department, Department of Aquaculture, IELM, FAES, SZIU
Senior scientist, Head of the Department, full time professor and DSc in
aquaculture.Currently he is involved in the coordination of several research and
innovation projects at the Department, assignment of new research directions, relationship
building and maintaining with farming enterprises and industrial companies, development of
alternative solutions to occurring problems.

Pter Barta
CEO Post-Privatisation Foundation
Pter Barta is a man with entrepreneurial spirit and a can-and-will-do
attitude. He is highly experienced in both the private and public sectors,
serving companies, institutions and NGOs.Pters work has been focused on management
and consultancy, being involved in numerous national and international programs for both
US organizations (Academy for Educational Development Foundation and Development
Alternative Inc., within a local program financed through USAID) and European ones (Council
of Europe). Pter joined SMURD Trgu Mure (the best provider of emergency medical
services) as manager, where he as in charge, among others, of the 2% fundraising campaign,
recognized as the most successful one in the country at that time. Afterward, Pter chose to
bring a change in the public sector, through his position as advisor for the Secretary of State
for SMEs. Pter is currently the Executive Director of the Post-Privatisation Foundation (FPP),
the only organization in Romania focused solely on entrepreneurship and on the promotion
of entrepreneurial skills among Romanians.

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Klara Stumpf
Project Manager at Hipavilon Nonprofit Ltd
Klara Stumpf has been working in the field of innovation management since 2008. She holds
masters degrees in Engineering Management and Environmental Engineering. As the Project
Manager of ValDeal Innovation Ltd. she participated in the evaluation and business
development of many innovative ideas, using the method of the IC2 Institute of the
University of Texas. Later she became the Product Development Coordinator of Gravity R&D
Ltd, where she studied the startup-point-of view of innovation management. She held the
position of the Intellectual Property Advisor at Danubia, a subsidiary of a patent and law
office. She is currently working in this field at Hipavilon Nonprofit Ltd. (as project manager),
the subsidiary of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office.

Ciaran Cullen
Manager of the Arclabs Incubation Centre for Innovative Technology
businesses
Ciarn Cullen is the Manager of the Arclabs Incubation Centre for Innovative
Technology businesses (www.arclabs.ie) based on the West Campus of Waterford Institute of
Technology (www.wit.ie).

He has extensive experience in developing businesses through

mentoring, funding and incubation assistances from early stage concepts through to high
growth start ups in his roles as Chief Executive Officer of Waterford City Enterprise Board,
Chair of the LEO National IT Committee and as Managing Director of Waterford City
Enterprise Centre. He has worked with a broad range of business models which fulfil varied
customer needs in a range of sectors including ICT, Pharmaceutical, medical product, food
and drink production, engineering etc.Ciarn works throughout the South East Region of
Ireland and is based in offices in Arclabs in both the WIT West campus and in the Kilkenny
Research and Innovation Centre, incubating spin out's and augmented spin in's

while

introducing businesses in the broader business community to the knowledge and talent
contained in WIT. He also assists the development and enhancement of the entrepreneurial
spirit and skills among the students and staff in WIT.

Michael Martin
Global New Product Introduction Manager with NCR
Michael Martin is Global New Product Introduction Manager with NCR, responsible
for the release of new banking products from design to final delivery to major
worldwide banks.Previously worked as Manager of the Irish Software Innovation
Network and set up ISIN as a knowledge brokerage on software research, funding, IP, events,

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

etc. for companies to find relevant information.Michael has worked

as Product Development Manager with Trintech (Secure Payment Company) from early stage
start up until acquired by Verifone and managed the development of the first open payment
platform to achieve full PCI/Banking Security Approval.Previously worked with the University
of Maynooth and European Space Agency as Engineering Manager of 3 spacecraft
instruments that were successfully flown on Russian and ESA satellites to Mars and Haleys
Comet.

Lina Klemkaite
Co-founder / President DRAMBLYS
Sociologist with substantial knowledge and skills in project management and
evaluation. PhD Candidate in Migration Studies (University of Granada), MA in
Migrations, Conflicts and Social Cohesion in the Global Society (University of Deusto),
Specialist in Human Rights (University-specific degree, Universidad del Pais Vasco). SYLFF
(The Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund Program) fellow and co-author of
Local

initiatives

to

the

global

financial

crisis

(Deusto

Digital:

2012).

LinkedIN:

https://es.linkedin.com/in/linaklemkaite

Bill O'Gorman
Director for Research CEDRE, eDIGIREGION leader
Professor Bill OGorman is Director for Research in the Centre Enterprise
Development and Regional Economy (CEDRE). As well as performing his own
research and supervising others in the fields of entrepreneurial regions, regional
development and entrepreneurship research he also lecturers in entrepreneurship,
organisation development (OD), and change management at undergraduate, post graduate
and executive levels. Bill is a mentor to a number of new and developing indigenous
organisations. Prior to joining academia in 1999, Bill was Managing Director of his own
electronics sub-contract business for nine years. Prior to that, he amassed over twenty years
experience working in various multinational organisations at senior management and
executive levels. From around the mid 1990s Bill has developed strong links with regional
and national policy makers and implementers. He is an advisor on several government
programmes and participates in forums examining the development of policy for SMEs,
entrepreneurial regions, and entrepreneurship education. Since 2004, Bill has been Lead
Partner and Coordinator of many EU co-funded including the EU Regions of Knowledge
project CRIPREDE. One of the sustainable legacies from the CRIPREDE project was the
creation and development of the Spirit of Enterprise Forum in South East Ireland, a forum
involving all of the regions key stakeholders in entrepreneurship and innovation. Currently
Bill is Leader of the EU funded eDIGIREGION project which focuses on developing the RTD
and Innovation Aspects of the EU Digital Agenda within regions across the EU.

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

Marius Mitroi
eDIGIREGION regional coordinator
Being in charge with the coordination of the Innovation Programme at
UEFISCDI (Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development
and Innovation Funding), Marius has designed, developed and implemented
the Funding programme for research and innovation, identifying European
best practices and instruments for the Programmes addressed to SMEs. He was involved in
developing new support policies for innovation and financing instruments (e.g. Innovation
Vouchers, developing new products-systems-technologies, developing innovation and
technological transfer infrastructure, support services for innovation, European cooperation
programmes

as

EUREKA-EUROSTARS).

Also,

he

coordinates

projects

in

areas

as

entrepreneurship, protecting IPR and clusters, funded by programmes like South-East

Europe, EEA Grants, INTERREG IVC, FP7 and H2020 (e.g. SEE-IFA Network, ECOEMERGE,
FINNO, KT Force, VIBE, CLOUD, SEE Technology, EVLIA, eDIGIREGION, INNOVOUCHER).

Vicente Muoz
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Director Manager of the Fundacin Caja
Rural
Vicente Muoz is a graduate in Economics and Business Sciences (ETEA,
Cordoba University) with a broad experience in almost every stage of the entrepreneurship
process. Since 2009, he is the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Director Manager of the

Fundacin Caja Rural, a private organism responsible of the principal mentoring programs
for start-ups in Castilla-La Mancha (e.g. Lazarus and Startup Dragons). He has also an active
role in coaching and training activities related with management and governance of
enterprises, entrepreneurship, marketing and new technologies. He is not only an expert in
theoretical matters, but he is always willing to make it actual personal projects and put his
knowledge at the service of young entrepreneurship business angel (Co-founder of Vitamina

K) or start-up mentor (Plug & Play Accelerator).

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913

ICT INNOVATIVE CONCEPTS

Digital Test Tube, Daniel Thewlis, Ireland

Serafim, Robert Mistovschi & Gabriel Rotaru, Romania
Dairy Cattle Rumen Bolus - moow.farm, Hungary
Accurate and affordable tracking/location system for
livestock farming based on flexible GPS Stickers, Spain

This document is produced under the EC contract 319913